What’s Happened To American Jobs?

Workers manufacture car dash mats at a maquiladora belonging to the TECMA group in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, many North American and international companies have moved their manufacturing to Mexico at a lower cost and while auto, electronics and agriculture sectors in Mexico has grown, a majority of Mexicans have seen little benefit in income.
Workers manufacture car dash mats at a maquiladora belonging to the TECMA group in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, many North American and international companies have moved their manufacturing to Mexico at a lower cost and while auto, electronics and agriculture sectors in Mexico has grown, a majority of Mexicans have seen little benefit in income. Ivan Pierre Aguirre / AP Photo
Workers manufacture car dash mats at a maquiladora belonging to the TECMA group in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, many North American and international companies have moved their manufacturing to Mexico at a lower cost and while auto, electronics and agriculture sectors in Mexico has grown, a majority of Mexicans have seen little benefit in income.
Workers manufacture car dash mats at a maquiladora belonging to the TECMA group in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. With the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, many North American and international companies have moved their manufacturing to Mexico at a lower cost and while auto, electronics and agriculture sectors in Mexico has grown, a majority of Mexicans have seen little benefit in income. Ivan Pierre Aguirre / AP Photo

What’s Happened To American Jobs?

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The 2016 presidential race has focused on the loss of American jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs. 

 Some of the candidates have blamed the loss of jobs on free trade agreements while others have placed blame on our tax rates. 

Richard Longworth, a global cities fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Robert E. Scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute joined us to talk about why the jobs moved overseas in the first place, where they went, and whether they will indeed come back, as many of the presidential candidates have promised.